How to kill a dead project

What do the zombie apocalypse and many businesses have in common? Answer: dead things that refuse to lie down and be still. The dead, brain-eating things businesses have a hard time killing are shambling, resource-eating projects. You know the ones. They’re projects where the meetings continue, team members still charge their time, but not only…

MetLife renovates legacy IT for the cloud era

Many enterprises have embraced cloud computing to fuel digital transformations, launching initiatives that range from new mobile applications to analytics for gleaning insights from customers. Yet due to concerns about security, regulations and data governance, enterprise adoption of public cloud services remains less than 50 percent and won’t cross that mark until 2018, according to…

4 business applications for natural language processing

You may not realize it but natural language processing (NLP) is more than an emerging technology for business — it’s a popular technology widely used every day. Online search, spell-check —  almost any feature that involves language incorporates natural language processing algorithms. NLP algorithms teach computers to use language like people. If you were manually…

Blockchain pilots show big-business promise

Blockchain, the complex technology that supports bitcoins and other cryptocurrencies, is poised for a move into mainstream business. A growing number of industries and at least three national governments are conducting pilots or, in a few cases, actual deployments of blockchain applications. Early use cases are aimed at harnessing the technology to improve supply chain…

The 8 biggest IT management mistakes

Everybody makes mistakes. Most are harmless, some are embarrassing but forgivable, and some can take your career — or your company — down with them. Some of the most common IT gaffes include becoming trapped in a relationship with a vendor you can’t shake loose, hiring or promoting the wrong people, and hiding problems from…